10 keys for building private clouds

Brandon Butler |
May 30, 2012

One of the toughest parts about implementing a cloud strategy isn't choosing the underlying technology to power the deployment; it's having the processes in place to manage an effective migration to the cloud, says Thomas Bittman, a cloud analyst for Gartner.

9. Mind the processes. Business needs evolve, and IT needs to be able to change with it. "As you build private clouds, look ahead to what's next," Bittman says. The future of cloud, he says, is a hybrid model that uses both a private and public cloud resources.

10. Start small, think big. "It's daunting, so be cautious of how you deploy your cloud," Bittman says. Learn by experimentation, monitor the usage and feedback, identify needs within the business and architect IT solutions to solve those specifically. "We can't design everything perfectly from the ground up, so start small and build from there," Bittman says.